E-COMMERCE ROADMAP

ROADMAP

On 15 December 2014, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) organized an event to launch the formulation of the first Philippine E-Commerce Roadmap to cover the succeeding years until 2020. The Roadmap highlights the important role of e-commerce in economic development and presents the trends in e-commerce development globally, within the Asia-Pacific region, and within ASEAN, in order to provide the proper context on why the Philippines is finally coming up with the Roadmap fifteen years after the enactment of the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000.

This Roadmap presents the state of e-commerce adoption in the Philippines vis-a-vis other countries. The comparative data presented imply that the Philippines is missing out on a lot of opportunities brought about by e-commerce. While a lot of opportunities exists, there are a number of challenges that the country still has to face to be able to maximize such opportunities that e-commerce brings.

The recommendations in this Roadmap have been classified according to the six (6) I’s or the key areas highlighted in the APEC Digital Prosperity Checklist. These key areas are as follows:

Infrastructure: The need for an appropriate supply chain, communications, and applications infrastructure;

Investment: The ability to promote and support a range of investment opportunities from Foreign Direct Investment to capital flows;

Innovation: The ability to foster and support innovation, including the ability to protect innovation and investment in research and development;

Intellectual Capital: The ability to foster the appropriate skills and training from technological to linguistic to entrepreneurship;

Information Flow: The ability to use, transfer, and process information – the currency of the digital economy – while promoting privacy and a trusted Internet environment; and

Integration: The ability to connect domestic industries with the global economy.

The Philippine E-Commerce Roadmap: 2016-2020 addresses a number of issues in the e-commerce ecosystem that requires collective effort of the various stakeholders towards the realization of the goals outlined in the Roadmap.

The Roadmap will be supported by other major initiatives of the government such as: the formulation of the National Broadband Plan led by the ICT Office under the Department of Science and Technology, and the National Retail Payment System project led by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. In turn, it will support other initiatives such as the implementation of iGovPhilippines, the Philippine Roadmap for Digital Startups, and the APEC Boracay Action Agenda to Globalize MSMEs.